Rocket Raccoon And Groot To Take A Backseat For Guardians Of The Galaxy Movie?

This is one half of a split Marvel rumour report. You may also wish to check the other half too.

We’re several screenplay drafts into The Guardians of the Galaxy now, with director James Gunn keeping busy on the latest. It’s not clear at all just how much the film has been changing, wave by wave, but it’s possible that things have wriggled about quite a lot, and they won’t necessarily have settled down just yet, either

All of which puts this next little tidbit on uneven ground, I’d say. It might be on the nose, or it could just be a snapshot of an ever-changing picture. Still, it’s interesting to note at least one phase of development on the movie.

According to Latino Review, who are on top form with Marvel bits and pieces tonight, the current focus in Guardians pre-production is on the characters of Star-Lord, Gamora and Drax The Destroyer. They seem to be implying, if only lightly, that this means Rocket Raccoon and Groot will have less up-front roles in the film.

Gamora and Drax getting the highlight treatment over Rocket Raccoon and Groot makes sense since the traditional backstories for both of those characters tie them to Guardians and Avengers 2 villain Thanos… also, Rocket Racoon and Groot are not humanoid characters, so – yeah – it’ll probably be easy not to focus on them.

So, in a nutshell, Marvel and Gunn can’t hang their movie on such unrelatable characters as a talking raccoon and plant thing, so they’re going to be kept to the sidelines.

Still, they’re going to have to get them right if they’re going to work – just like anything else, really.

Marvel movie audiences have swallowed an awful lot so far, and come back for more. After The Avengers threw all of those odd ingredients together and punters gave the mix a proper, billion-dollar thumbs up, I started to see that even some pretty wacky concepts could be pulled off for mainstream crowds if the storytelling was good, the logic seemed consistent enough and the tone was right.

I think the question shouldn’t be “Do we sideline Rocket Raccoon and Groot?” but “What’s the best take on Rocket Raccoon and Groot we can use and not have to sideline?”